


Unusual Suspects

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [100]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, The Lone Gunmen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 15:32:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5253596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Unusual Suspects

_“No matter how paranoid you are, you’re not paranoid enough. Tell the truth. Reach as many people as you can with it. That’s your weapon.”  
“Susanne?!”_

Byers stared, dismayed. It was the same men, the same man, from the warehouse, and now they had her. They’d abducted her right off the street in broad daylight, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

“No way did that just happen,” said Langly from behind him.

Byers swallowed. “Yes. I’m afraid it did.”

“Un-freakin-believable,” muttered Frohike.

It was difficult to process. How could he have been so wrong about everything he thought he knew, about the government, about the world? Even if by some miracle he didn’t get fired from his job with the FCC, Byers wasn’t sure he could even stomach going back to work. How could he trust anything he was told by the people above him? There was no telling whose agenda he was really serving, which of the tasks he carried out in good faith each day were actually part of a deeper and less than altruistic end game. Susanne had opened his eyes to all of it, and now that he knew the truth, there was no way he could go back to pretending he didn’t.

“So what do we do now?” Langly again.

 _We go after her!_ he wanted to shout. _We get back in the car, and we go after them, and we get her back! How hard can it be to follow two big, black sedans? She needs me!_

“I have to go back and clean up my booth at the convention center,” he said instead.

“Oh man, my merch! I left it all sitting there last night!”

Langly rolled his eyes. “Calm down, Doo-hickey. No one wants to steal your crappy converters.”

“Look, just because no one’s dumb enough to want to steal _yours_ , doesn’t mean they can’t recognize _real_ quality when they see it.”

“Hey, man, I--”

Byers wheeled around. “Will you two stop bickering?! How can you be going on about such… such trivial matters after everything we’ve seen? A woman was just kidnapped in broad daylight, and you’re worried about devices for bootlegging cable?!”

“Hey, not all of us narc for a living,” Frohike mumbled. He cleared his throat. “Look, buddy, I’m sorry about your ladyfriend, really I am. But I’ve still gotta pay the bills.”

“Yeah, and I lost out on fifty bucks last night because of you,” Langly added. 

On some level, Byers did sympathize, but compared with everything they’d seen, after having his entire worldview shaken to the core, everything else just seemed so insignificant. He scowled.

“I just don’t know how you can go back to pretending that nothing is different.” 

“Hey, sure, we’ve all had our pretty little minds blown. Some prettier than others, but who’s counting?” Frohike leered as if it were a reflex, then frowned. “But anyway, what are we supposed to do about any of it? You saw those guys last night. We’re lucky we got out of there with our lives.”

“Yeah, man. I’m happy to fight the system, but I do my damage from a safe distance, behind a computer screen and plenty of IP masking. Which means I still need to keep my cash flow intact.”

Byers sighed. They were right. Who did he think he was, hoping he could bring down the conspirators and blow the whole plot wide open. Susanne couldn’t even get anyone at the newspaper to listen to her story, and she had all of the facts and details at her disposal. What hope did he and two bumbling hackers have of making any sort of meaningful difference?

He sighed again, casting one last dispirited glance down the road after the sedans that had long since passed out of sight. “Come on,” he said finally. “Let’s go back.”


End file.
